occasionally bombarding the headquarters in an irregular manner

June 01, 2012

magnificent charlatan

He never quite got America surrounded, but he did his best. Let's make room for the sixteenth anniversary of the death of one of the seminal chancers of the modern age:

At 12:44am on the 31st of May 1996, Dr. Timothy Leary sat bolt upright in bed startling the small group of friends and family who had gathered to keep him company during his final days. He had been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer the previous year and it had finally run its course. “Why not?” he asked those keeping vigil. Again, louder, “Why not?” He repeated the question a third time. “Why not?” Then, lying back down, Dr. Leary whispered his final word… “beautiful”… and slipped into death. He was 75 years old.

The late Hitchens major used to go on tour with Jesus people in a manner reminiscent of the old Dr Tim/G Gordon Liddy vaudeville setup. And reality TV, with its origins among Dutch hippy breadheads, always struck me as one of his children, too. Though he would have called it Encounter TV, no doubt.